cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/57576884
There’s so many ways to interact with the Fediverse. The most popular, by far, seems to be Mastodon, but Lemmy, Misskey, and Pixelfed are also relatively popular. Kbin used to be popular, but it has apparently been abandoned, and is mostly dead at this point.
I recently learned that Mbin is a thing, checked it out, and it looked really cool! Has anyone used it? How different is it from Lemmy? I hear they have better integration with Mastodon.
What Fediverse services do you actually, regularly use?
For me, it’s mostly Lemmy, though I do hop on Mastodon every now and then.
Mostly Lemmy, but also Peertube, rarely Mastodon I also have accounts on other Fediverse services but I don’t use it
Forgive my ignorance but i dont see mention of Bluesky? I beleive thats also fediverse?
No, Bluesky is a centralized platform, literally twitter 2.0. The Fediverse’s main selling point is the opposite.
But there are different servers, similar to Lemmy?
AT protocol is different than Activity Pub. They do not allow instance control and freedom (you can t really call this federation) , it is not real decentralization if you dont allow users spinning their instances and federate with the rest.
Mastodon, Pixelfed, Lemmy and Bookwyrm. They all seem to cover most of my social media needs which (in all other cases beside Lemmy) can be described as shouting in the void and being happy if someone else is there too.
I’ve been using Mastodon for eight years and got involved with hosting a small instance for some years now. Also running a Bookwyrm instance and, since a few days, this Lemmy instance which will remain single user most likely.
I have several more Mastodon accounts I’m switching between and inactive Pixelfed, GoToSocial and Friendica accounts.
Mastodon, Lemmy, Goto Social, Pixelfed, Bookwyrm.
Peertibes default no federation thing is too frustrating for me to deal with
Lemmy, Sharkey (like Mastodon but with more features), and WAFRN (the fediverse’s Tumblr alternative)
Other than Lemmy, I’ve got a self-hosted and federated Matrix instance. I don’t actually do much with Matrix at the moment, it’s mostly the result of me tinkering with self-hosted services. I did recently bridge it to Discord, and I’ve let my friends know it’s a potential alternative if Discord continues going down the shitter.
Discord continues going down the shitter.
How so? And what do you mean bridge Matrix to Discord?
Mostly referring to the recent rumblings about their potential IPO. Once shareholders get their hands on something, it’s all downhill.
Matrix supports “bridges” for a number of third party services so you can keep in contact with friends who haven’t made the transition to federated services.
Cool :D Thanks for the link, I’ll definitely be checking that out~
Once shareholders get their hands on something
We’ll see I guess…
Lemmy and Matrix. And I don’t use Matrix a helluva lot.
I mainly use Lemmy (infosec.pub) and I sometimes use Mastodon (mstdn.plus).
Mastodon, via jorts.horse. I use it mainly to shitpost, and occasionally catch up on news.
PeerTube, via spectra.video. It was part of an effort to switch away from YouTube, but due to the abysymal discoverability, I am forced to concur that it hasn’t been doing well as a replacement. I now just use Grayjay to see videos, regardless of platforms.
For now, I use Lemmy via lemmy.cafe. However, when PieFed gets a stable app, I plan to switch over to it, probably via feddit.online.
Maybe I’ll try out Loops when it gains federation support.
However, when PieFed gets a stable app, I plan to switch over to it
Yeah, lots of people have been talking highly of PieFed.
Maybe I’ll try out Loops when it gains federation support.
Oh, no Fed yet?! Dang…
I’m an Mbin user.
Mbin is a fork of kbin. Kbin’s dev didn’t really trust people much, so he wanted to have sole control over what code gets added to kbin. Which led to issues when he wasn’t available and development just came to a halt for months because no one could accept changes anymore. The other devs wanted more control so they could actually get shit done, so they decided to fork the project instead.
How different is it from Lemmy? I hear they have better integration with Mastodon.
I think the biggest difference is really the fact that you can subscribe to not just communities but also users. This is where the superior Mastodon compatibility comes into play by allowing us to see posts that don’t mention communities. Lemmy only sees Mastodon posts if they mention a community explicitly or an Mbin user has interacted with it.
There’s also other stuff like public upvotes, boosting, tags, reputation (karma), and custom community CSS. I don’t really know Lemmy well enough to give a full list of where they differ.
I’m an Mbin user.
The Fediverse is pretty cool… Hello, Mbin user!
you can subscribe to not just communities but also users.
Oh, that’s interesting.
Not sure what the point of public upvotes is, or what boosting is, but tags and custom CSS sounds cool. How’s my Mbin karma?! IDK if that’s how it works… I’ve signed up on your same instance, I’ll see how it goes.
Thank you for your comment!
Not sure what the point of public upvotes is,
Well, you can see who upvoted something. kbin also allowed seeing downvotes, but that got removed because of worries about harassment.
By looking at who upvoted a specific post you liked, you can find like-minded people to follow. I also find it cool to see the different instances and platforms the upvotes come from.
Boosting is a bit complicated. It’s supposed to be retweeting basically, and does work that way under the hood. Posts boosted from Mbin do appear that way from Mastodon. However, I don’t think Mbin itself currently treats boosts as more than just an even more public upvote (with regular upvotes you can see who upvoted a post, not what posts a user upvoted; boosts are publically listed on profiles).
Hmm I see.
Not sure how much use I’d get of public upvotes, personally, but boosting/re-posting seems like a genuinely nice feature.
How’s my Mbin karma
It’s 2500~, but it doesn’t affect anything on Mbin, so there’s no point worrying about itThanks! Yeah, I have no idea how that’s even calculated or whatever so… If it doesn’t even affect anything, I don’t see why I would care lol
It’s basically the same as Reddit karma, it’s just the sum of upvotes+downvotes you got
If it doesn’t even affect anything, I don’t see why I would care lol
Same, idc, but some people care about it. Also piefed cares, I think it puts a red icon in the username of the users with negative reputation and their posts start with 0 upvotes instead of 1. (If I’m not mistaken)
It’s basically the same as Reddit karma, it’s just the sum of upvotes+downvotes you got
There’s one difference: boosts give you +2 reputation points.
Meh, I suppose!!! Thanks for the info~ :D
Is there plans for an Mbin mobile app?
There’s Interstellar which is made by the admin of my instance. I don’t know if the Mbin devs have plans for their own official app.
Kbin’s dev didn’t really trust people much, so he wanted to have sole control over what code gets added to kbin
The developer of Kbin is an absolute genius and Kbin was one of the most beautiful and original things ever done in the Fediverse, with a hybridization between microblogging and threadiverse like never seen before. It’s a real shame that he ended support for Kbin, but I think he got burned out…
I think the biggest difference is really the fact that you can subscribe to not just communities but also users
This is an added value, but it was also a critical aspect. The fact of having allowed to follow users and not only communities (magazines) has determined a significant slowdown of the server.
Furthermore, this great added value of joining microblogging to threadiverse, does not make the interface very easy to read. This was taken sic et simpliciter from Mbin, without further developments. Perhaps, if the original developer had remained active, he could have taken the responsibility of making some sensible changes to the Knin interface…
I’m not entirely sure what makes “subscribing to users” different from following people on social media. Can you explain?
Oh, that’s what I meant. And Mbin calls it following too. I just said “subscribing” because it’s the same action behind the scenes, just different terms to refer to it, and I was using “communities” first in the same sentence.
subscribe to not just communities but also users
Ah got it. Context threw me off I see what you mean now
Mostly Lemmy via discuss.online, with a little bit of Pixelfed via social.photo and Mastodon via utter.online.
I was using Loops pretty heavily for a while, but the most recent update made it not work right on my phone (and there’s no web version), so maybe I’ll try again when it’s out of beta. It’s also not truly federated atm, so only sort of counts.
I’ve tried out a bit of PieFed and it looks really nice. Probably the best Lemmy threadiverse alternative atm. The dev does some interesting experiments like Private Voting
How’s Pixelfed’s federation work? I thought it was an image-based thing, like Instagram, so how does that interop with, say, Lemmy?
I was using Loops pretty heavily for a while
Is that like TikTok? Or like Reels, I guess, since it’s Pixelfed. A shame it doesn’t work for you… I’m big on TikTok, might just give it a try, though I’m not sure I can find the content I want on such a niche platform.
PieFed and it looks really nice. Probably the best Lemmy threadiverse alternative atm.
Over Lemmy? Why do you say so? I see what they list as differences from Lemmy and some of the features seem pretty nice, but I’m skeptical of this reputation business. Feels a little like Reddit karma, I don’t know.
Pixelfed federation works well. it shows up on anything activityhub related.
Works closer to mastodon with hashtags.
it shows up on anything activityhub related.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Pixelfed post… But I was thinking more so the other way around. Does anything AP-related show up on Pixelfed?
Yep works both ways.
If you want to try it out: Pixelfed to other services:
https://photos.chrisco.me/p/michaelc/803147727714451568It shows up in:
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/114122668582152347
And here it is in pixelfed: https://photos.chrisco.me/i/web/post/803734298035587039
oh wait that may not work for you on my server, I made it auth protected woops!
It works but im on the phone…so im going to leave it for now. But yeah it works.
Ugh, the links aren’t working as intended I think…
The first Pixelfed link works, but the first Mastodon link just redirects me to the Pixelfed one.
The second Mastodon link works, but the corresponding Pixelfed link prompts a signup…
I believe you, though!
Yeah its totally my setup! I had some issues with openAI and amazon just slamming my servers so had to make it harder for them to get content.
Dang ://
PieFed is more advanced than Lemmy in several ways, while less so in others.
Like for one it offers fantastic onboarding to the Fediverse via a wizard asking users what topics they are interested in and then signs them up to communities.
And for another, at any time users can view Categories of Communities, such as all things Fediverse, News & Politics, or Gaming, and now users can even create our own customized Feeds - all of this is in addition to rather than instead of the traditional Subscribed and All feeds.
Users can also follow anything - a user, community, post, single comment, etc. - plus stop following comments that you’ve written but no longer wish to receive notifications for.
It’s REALLY cool! The major downsides revolve around it being newer and so a bit less polished, like there’s now a post preview feature but that is not yet available for comment replies.
The codebase is written in Python, so is possible for more people to help out with making changes than Lemmy, written in Rust. Some people wonder if it might not scale as well to larger number of users, but so far that is not a problem and the speed of updates seems well worth that trade-off.
And for another, at any time users can view Categories of Communities, such as all things Fediverse, News & Politics, or Gaming, and now users can even create our own customized Feeds
I like the sound of this. Pardon the comparison, but it’s like multisubreddit. That’s one of the big things from reddit I miss. Making my own categorised feed.
It is a feature very often asked for on Lemmy, but with the codebase being in Rust, development work on it is very slow. With PieFed being in Python, it is far easier to add features such as that one to it.:-)
I see… You make a compelling argument, to be honest, and those are some nice features. I really like this custom Feed thing.
I’m definitely delving into Piefed in the coming days.
It is very much worth checking out, yes!
I use it as my daily driver. Some functions, like searching for posts, are abysmally bad - but thankfully that’s the only one in that category. For me who can hop over to a Lemmy alt when I need to, PieFed is a great main. Another downside is that often I receive a notification for something that I cannot see, for a variety of reasons including that I’ve blocked all users from an instance (but hey, on PieFed that’s actually possible in the first place!).
PieFed is definitely still in alpha, though ironically a better experience than Lemmy in many ways for all of that, even though a more frustrating one in other ways. An API is currently being tested using the Thunder app, which should help smooth the usability issues.
My advice: most definitely make a PieFed account - you have nothing to lose there - and also hold onto your older one. You’ll use it less and less often, you’ll see:-). There is a bit of a learning curve though, since PieFed offers so many new features and you’ll want to try out this and that to see what works best for you. e.g. for some lower-volume communities, I have notifications set up to receive every single new post, rather than have to wait to find that while scrolling Subscribed or All. It really helps! (But can be quite overwhelming for higher-volume communities - the better way now could be to create a custom topic Feed, which I haven’t tried yet but that’s awesome that I now can:-).
I love how excited you are about this!
I have a PieFed account. Set it up and browsed for a little, but haven’t found my way quite yet. I’ll try to figure it out this weekend.
I’ll probably post about my expedience on !gondaily@lemm.ee, one of these days.
Excited :D
Yeah the learning curve is real… but fortunately it’s bc there is so much more that can be done, not bc like it’s “difficult” or anything, just that you get to choose how you want things to be.:-)
Like anything, you get better with practice, so yeah, just start strolling through the posts and enjoy!
PieFed really is the best (most often only) answer that I’ve seen to SO VERY MANY questions for how to accomplish something on Lemmy (usually you cannot, unless some app provides that feature). Like how to see posts that have nothing whatsoever to do with politics: the topics (often if not always tend to) do that, like Arts & Crafts - and another cool trick is that if you ever do want it, News & Politics is always right there just waiting for you, so there’s no longer any need to “subscribe” to those (or maybe subscribe to some of the lower traffic, less contentious communities?), hence you can both have a Subscription feed free of politics (as an example, for someone who wanted that) and still have full access to politics whenever you wanted. It’s a whole new way of browsing the Threadiverse, i.e. even if accessing the same Lemmy communities, you approach it all differently - or, you can, if you want.
It’s so nice to have choices!:-)
:D That does sound nice…
Pixelfed/Mastodon/etc sort of work with Lemmy, in that they can see Lemmy posts. Lemmy can see posts from them if you tag them appropriately, which rarely happens. They only sort of federate properly. And yeah, Loops is like TikTok for the Fediverse.
I’m not saying PieFed is better than Lemmy, just saying that apart from Lemmy, your best option is probably PieFed atm.
loops needs to add selfhosting for vid quality options alone, everythings so blurry
Mostly Lemmy for me but sometimes Pixelfed. I’m also a psychopath and browse “everything” with all NSFW filters turned off while at work, so I’m probably not a good judge.
That is actual insanity yeah, I have NSFW turned off even at home…
I open the links too.
Blocked and reported. Get out of my feed. /j
I know, I’m a mad man. But I stand by my principles of seeing boobs at work.
In random order
Loops
Peertube very sparingly. Youtube is still king.
Lemmy. Nuked my 14 year old Reddit account today. Lemmy is great.
Pixelfed
Mastodon
Wordpress if that is counted as federated
Gosh, I have to try out Loops…
Lemmy. Nuked my 14 year old Reddit account today. Lemmy is great.
NGL, I think Lemmy is better than Reddit. I enjoy it more. I can’t put my finger on why, though… They’re basically the same… Maybe it’s just a UI issue.
I do believe the type of people and lack of the karma system also makes it better. People do anything to get some karma.
Criiiinge…
I can tell you why, it’s the absolutely shitty Reddit mobile app that’s filled with annoying ads. Meanwhile, Lemmy has some really good third-party apps
Well, no, it is not that… My Reddit app has no ads. I vanced it.
I don’t get ads on anything, nowadays. I can imagine how that might sour the experience tho.
The Lemmy apps are way better than the Reddit app tho, that’s for sure!
Wordpress if that is counted as federated
It’s an option for the blog owners to select, but it’s more federated than Loops (which currently isn’t federated at all). As a random example, here is a Wordpress blog post that was federated out to Mastodon, and then federated out to PieFed.
I did try to federate my blog to Mastodon. Haven’t made a post in a long time though, so I can’t tell if it works or not.
Only Lemmy. I could never find anything interesting on Mastodon and hate the Twitter-based format.
Same, same, and same.
Understandable, really. I follow the #caturday tag and a comedy account called @lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social so my feed is lovely.
